Daily Image
25-12-2021
Webb Space Telescope - Go for launch!
| Submitter: | Ramon Navarro |
| Description: | At the NOVA Optical InfraRed group at ASTRON we develop the most advanced telescopes and astronomical instrumentation on a daily basis. We are so used to this, that we tend to forget how extraordinary it actually is. Once in a while however, the world reminds us that our accomplishments are actually spectacular. For instance when recent Nobel prizes were awarded in our field, the first picture of a black hole, or the discovery of gravitational waves and the kilonova. The launch of the Webb Space Telescope is an equal moment of anxiety, this time not because we observed something new, but because of the unknown that we are about to discover with the leap in capabilities the Webb Space Telescope will offer. For more than a decade it is basically sitting there, in a corner in the lobby of the ASTRON building. I’m talking about the MIRI SMO TVM for JWST, or in full; the Mid InfraRed Instrument – Spectrometer Main Optics – Thermal Vacuum model for the James Webb Space Telescope. Back in 2008, this fancy collection of shiny aluminium was essential to qualify that MIRI survives launch into space, that MIRI operates perfectly in the vacuum of space at extreme temperatures down to 6.8 Kelvin, and even that MIRI would remain fully aligned in a zero gravity environment. Not a simple feat given its 14 mirrors, 12 gratings, 4 integral field units, 2 mechanisms and 2 detectors. After delivery of the MIRI SMO flight models to ESA and NASA, it took a full decade to test and qualify the Webb Space Telescope. Since a few months the MIRI prototype in the ASTRON lobby is accompanied by a scale model of the Webb Space Telescope, attracting more attention as launch approaches. The Webb Space Telescope is the most sophisticated and complex observatory ever constructed. It has an enormous gold mirror 6.5 metres across, and an even larger sunshield, both delicately folded to fit within the nose cone of an Ariane 5 Rocket. At the moment of writing the combination is waiting at the launch pad, ready for the ride. When the immense sound of the Ariane 5 rocket rumbles across Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana, it will signal the end of a journey decades in the making, as well as the start of new discoveries. That precious cargo carries the hopes and dreams of thousands of engineers and scientists who have worked for so long to make this observatory a reality. We’ll no doubt all be holding our breath. |
| Copyright: | Ramon Navarro |
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